66 BAHIA BLANCA. [CHA. v. 



dangerous, and that they have been known to attack a man on horse- 

 back, trying to kick and leap on him. My informer pointed out to me 

 an old man, whom he had seen much terrified by one chasing him. I 

 observe in Burchell's travels in South Africa, that he remarks, " Having 

 killed a male ostrich, and the feathers being dirty, it was said by the 

 Hottentots to be a nest bird." I understand that the male emu in the 

 Zoological Gardens takes charge of the nest ; this habit, therefore, is 

 common to the family. 



The Gauchos unanimously affirm that several females lay in one 

 nest. I have been positively told that four or five hen birds have been 

 watched to go in the middle of the day, one after the other, to the same 

 nest. I may add, also, that it is believed in Africa, that two or more 

 females lay in one nest.* Although this habit at first appears very 

 strange, I think the cause may be explained in a simple manner. 

 The number of eggs in the nest varies from twenty to forty, and even 

 to fifty ; and according to Azara, sometimes to seventy or eighty. Now 

 although it is most probable, from the number of eggs found in one 

 district being so extraordinarily great in proportion to the parent birds, 

 and likewise from the state of the ovarium of the hen, that she may in 

 the course of the season lay a large number, yet the time required must 

 be very long. Azara states,f that a female in a state of domestication 

 laid seventeen eggs, each at the interval of three days one from another. 

 If the hen was obliged to hatch her own eggs, before the last was laid 

 the first probably would be addled ; but if each laid a few eggs at 

 successive periods, in different nests, and several hens, as is stated to 

 be the case, combined together, then the eggs in one collection would 

 be nearly of the same age. If the number of eggs in one of these 

 nests is, as I believe, not greater on an average than the number laid 

 by one female in the season, then there must be as many nests as 

 females, and each cock bird will have its fair share of the labour of 

 incubation ; and that during a period when the females probably couldnot 

 sit, from not having finished laying.J I have before mentioned the great 

 numbers of huachos, or deserted eggs ; so that in one day's hunting 

 twenty were found in this state. It appears odd that so many should 

 be wasted. Does it not arise from the difficulty of several females 

 associating together, and finding a male ready to undertake the office of 

 incubation ? It is evident that there must at first be some degree of 

 association between at least two females ; otherwise the eggs would 

 remain scattered over the wide plains, at distances far too great to 

 allow of the male collecting them into one nest : some authors have 

 believed that the scattered eggs were deposited for the young birds 

 to feed on. This can hardly be the case in America, because 



* Burchell's " Travels," vol. i., p. 280. 



+ Azara, vol. iv., p. 173. 



J Lichtenstein, however, asserts ("Travels," vol ii., p. 25) that the hens 

 begin sitting when they have laid ten or twelve eggs; and that they continue 

 laying, I presume, in another nest. This appears to me very improbable. 

 He asserts that four or five hens associate for incubation with one cock, who 

 sits only at night. 



